Product Design @ teesside
Last week saw the return of four graduates from 2015. It was great to welcome back David Johnson, Martin Elerts, Lui Zatrak and Stephen Mounser . On the morning they delivered a joint presentation to students across design about their time at Teesside, friendships and their careers to date.
In the afternoon they spent time in the studio with our current 3rd year giving some really good advice and industry insights.
Thanks again to the ‘class of 2015’ until the next time.
Great day out visiting the EBAC factory. Thanks to product graduate and Senior Design Engineer at the company, Clyde Pittaway, for arranging what was an immensely enjoyable and detailed tour of their fascinating plant .
3rd year Product Design student David Donaghue has won a World Packaging Organisation World Star Student Award.
The WorldStar Student Awards competition is owned and produced by the World Packaging Organisation. It is an international packaging design competition for students – undergraduate or graduate – from countries around the world who are involved in projects in the field of packaging, including structural design and/or graphic design.
The competition is open to students who have won a legitimate local award in their region or country. David won a gold Award last year for his anti-glugging petrol can design in the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining Student Starpack Awards.
The WorldStar Student Awards are designed to encourage and show the talents of students as well as new and innovative ideas and thinking in the field of packaging. Through the publicity of WPO’s global publications and website, student winners are provided the opportunity to gain professional acknowledgement and entrance into a career as a packaging professional.
David is one of 3 overall winners from all over the world. The winners brochure can be found here:
David has been invited to receive his award at the Awards Ceremony and gala Diner on the 15th May at the Empire Hall, Prague.
A rather belated post but we had a great night at the Student Starpack Awards back in July last year. To celebrate winners of the Schools and Students Starpack 2017 Awards, a presentation was held on 28 June at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining headquarters at 297 Euston Road, London. Product Students Ralph Deloso, Beth Sanderson and David Donaghue picked up there GOLD awards.
Latest project worked on by Product Design graduate Martins Elerts who now works for Dixon Yacht Design in Southampton. Mārtiņš said he worked on the surfacing of the deck spending many hours refining every square millimetre to get it perfect.
Our order is in.
More info on the yacht can be found by clicking here.
3rd year student Lewis Brown has achieved a highly commended award in the annual Design Innovation in Plastics (DIP) competition.
Left to right: Steve Blanks (HellermannTyton), Gordon Haines (Master of Horners), Lewis Brown, Mark Freary (Teesside University), Bernie Rickinson (Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining)
Lewis Brown, who studied BSc (Hons) Product Design, gained the award for his product ‘Dynamic Grip’ – a new ergonomic garden multi-tool designed to make gardening comfortable and accessible for everyone.
The product caters for people who suffer with wrist arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions with an ergonomic handle and array of tools that eases the stress and strain from many common garden tasks.
DIP is organised by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and the Worshipful Company of Horners, and is one of the longest running student plastics design competitions in Europe. The brief this year for students was ‘Branching Out – Design for Garden Innovation.’
Students were asked to design an innovative product to be used in the garden, made primarily from plastics, that would better connect people with nature, enhance the pleasure of gardening or leisure activities within the garden, or help soothe mind and body after a long and stressful day.
Lewis attended a ceremony in London earlier this month where he was presented with the highly commended award. As part of the competition, Lewis has now been offered a placement with HellermannTyton, a leading supplier of products for fastening, fixing, identifying and protecting cables and their connecting components.
Lewis said: ‘To have got this far in the competition brings a great sense of pride and honour. Competitions like DIP are a great way of showing future employers that you have the right skills, and it helps to steer people down the best career path.
‘It has certainly made me think of my design from a new angle. It is easy to get carried away making a product look nice when realistically it could be impossible to manufacture. DIP makes you take a step back and consider a whole new range of factors.’
Mark Freary, Principal Lecturer in the School of Science, Engineering and Design, said: ‘This is a great achievement and recognises the three years of hard work by Lewis in developing his product design skills and technical knowledge.
‘This competition includes entries from postgraduate as well as undergraduate students, so Lewis has done exceptionally well in reaching the final six of such a prestigious competition. He has a great future ahead of him.’
Last week, in the sweltering heat of London, students from product design exhibited their final project work at the New Designers Exhibition in Islington.
New Designers takes place every year at the Business Design Centre which was once the Royal Horticultural Hall. Over 3.500 graduates exhibited from institutes all across the UK.
New Designers allows students to showcase their work alongside fellow graduates from across the UK with the aim of getting themselves noticed and that first foot on the ladder, which will help shape their future.
Funding for the exhibition was raised by the students, through organized events and ‘live’ projects, and through sponsorship. Alongside the exhibition students produced postcards, mini portfolios , business cards and t-shirts to help promote themselves and their work.
This year was arguably our most successful to date with plenty of interest for all the students and potential employment opportunities. Good luck class of 2018.
Matt Hulbert; BA Hons (First Class), MSc
Having graduated from Teesside University’s prestigious Product Design course in 2010, I found myself working within the exciting world of commercial design just three months after graduation. I joined a team of like minded designers at E3Design in Newcastle, where we worked on many household products that millions of people still use daily. At E3 we considered ourselves to be ‘Design Plumbers’ – called in at any point within the design cycle to assist in which ever way we were required to do so. Every day we were met with new challenges, whether it was to re-engineer a specific type of valve for costing down purposes or the conceptualisation and production of specialist laboratory equipment, no task was too big or too small. I am a big believer that Product Design is a creative extension of problem solving, and to be successful within the industry it’s more important that you develop a plethora of skills. My time at Teesside helped me to do just that, we were encouraged not only to develop our drawing, CAD and model making skills but importantly to ask questions and constantly address problems and apply creative thinking to overcome them.
It’s this core skill set that helped me to find my place in the industry and then go on to successfully design and launch my own invention, a digital golf training aid called TALON. In 2014 I left E3 (whom I continue to work closely with) and started Ojee Golf Ltd with my father, Paul. The last three years I’ve been fortunate enough to embark on an incredible journey, we successfully crowdfunded the TALON on Indiegogo selling 178 TALON units to 20 different countries. We’ve raised more than £150K in funding and were invited to Orlando and Shanghai to help promote UK business.
One of my greatest achievements to date has been realigning with Teesside University on the very course that I graduated from just seven short years ago, only this time as a part-time lecturer. I owe a great deal of gratitude to the University, the course and the lecturers so it feels good to play a part in the future of the course. If I can help to instil the same design values in today’s students that I learnt during my years on the course than it will give them everything they need to help pave their way into a successful design career.
And here is a video of it on water
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1usynPl_zc